SANAA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- For years, Saddam al-Sharabi began each morning with the same worry: diesel.
A delivery driver in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, he often lost entire days searching for fuel, trapped in lines that curled around gas stations and stretched for blocks. Every idle hour meant less money for his family in a country where survival is frequently measured one day at a time.
Now, each evening, he plugs in his Chinese-made electric truck and watches the battery charge.
"I no longer wake up worried about fuel," al-Sharabi said. "I charge the vehicle and continue my work. It changed everything for me."
Across Yemen -- a country battered by more than a decade of civil war, economic collapse and chronic fuel shortages -- Chinese electric vehicles are finding an unlikely foothold. They are being embraced not as symbols of environmental progress, but as tools of necessity.
Delivery drivers, farmers, traders and small-business owners are turning to electric pickups and trucks because they offer something increasingly scarce in Yemen: predictability. Fuel supplies can vanish overnight. Prices surge without warning. Electricity is unreliable, but for many Yemenis, charging a vehicle at home through solar panels or neighborhood power sources has become easier than finding diesel.
Moreover, their growing popularity has been aided by another Chinese export that spread rapidly across Yemen during the war: solar energy systems. As the country's power grid deteriorated, households and businesses increasingly turned to Chinese-made solar panels and batteries, laying a foundation of trust that electric vehicle dealers have been quick to capitalize on.
Yemen remains divided between north and south - the Houthi movement controls Sanaa and much of the north, while the internationally recognized government and its allies hold the south. But essential goods have continued to flow across the divide, typically entering through Aden, the country's main southern port. Electric trucks and solar panels have become among the most sought-after of those imports.
"Yemenis already trust Chinese products because they proved highly successful in the solar energy sector," said Ali Abdullah al-Ghabri, chief executive of Al-Raabi Autocars, a dealership in Sanaa whose showroom displays electric pickups and commercial trucks. Chinese vehicles, he said, offer relatively affordable prices and operating costs low enough to matter in an economy where relief is scarce.
For Abdul Fattah al-Hammadi, a businessman who recently bought a Chinese electric pickup, the calculation was simple.
"Sometimes fuel disappears, and sometimes prices suddenly rise beyond what ordinary people can afford," he said. "Now I recharge it as simply as charging a mobile phone."
Inside Al-Raabi's repair workshop, Yemeni technicians diagnose problems using digital systems and, when necessary, consult remotely with engineers in China. Munther al-Farran, a technician there, said the arrangement was quietly building technical expertise in a country where war has hollowed out much of the skilled labor force.
Government officials have also begun to take notice. Last week, Mohammed al-Ashwal, the industry minister in Yemen's internationally recognized government, now based in Aden, described the opening of the country's largest BYD showroom in the southern port city as a sign of renewed investor confidence and a reminder of Aden's commercial importance.
Economists remain cautious, warning that the shift will depend on whether Yemen's fragile electricity supply and charging infrastructure can keep pace with demand. But some say perceptions of electric vehicles have already begun to change.
"In Yemen today, electric vehicles are no longer viewed as luxury products," said Khaled al-Sanab, an economist in Sanaa. "For many people, they are becoming an economic necessity."
